Custom holiday cards for businesses: ideas, inspiration and how-to

Your clients are the reason for your success. The holidays are the perfect time to share your gratitude with them. And while you could go down to the nearest store and buy a box of generic cards, why not make the season bright with a custom holiday card, unique to your company?

Not only will you make their day merry and bright, but you’ll keep your company top-of-mind and build positive brand sentiment.

Need ideas? We’ve got 31 custom holiday cards to inspire you.

Fa la la la logo-based holiday cards
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You know your logo is important, but did you know it could become the centerpiece to your custom holiday card? Get playful and use the shapes and colors of your brand in new ways. Perhaps your logo can become an ornament on a tree, or a visual element of your brand can provide the base for a unique seasonal design.

One thing’s for sure: your recipients will know exactly who this card is from!

A clever repurposing of a logo into a gift box. Design by Zeek_zk

A playful way to turn a logo festive: make it into lights. Design by Aeryn.

Take an element of your logo or branding and expand on it. Design by Zeek_zk

Card ideas wrapped up in your industry
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A lawyer, airline pilot and Santa Claus walk into a bar… and share a round of egg nog.

Ok, I need to work on that punch line, but there’s a reason this sort of joke setup works: the type of work you do and the industry you’re in comes with a certain set of expectations and imagery. Be clever, have a little fun with your business and bring a unique spin to your holiday cards.

Santa doing non-Santa things is always fun. Design by lockscreen.

You know what accountants like? Numbers! Design by Hedwig Studio.

Hardies focuses on fresh food, so designer CreatEV built a tree with it.

Designer bizarre_amie got playful with this medical group card.

Designer Cristina.icnotiu used line art to turn Multivista’s services into snowflakes.

It can also be fun to focus on what’s under the tree… Design by CassielfLook in the sky! It’s a plane! A constellation! A holiday card! By Kate Pru.

Soley is a startup that focuses on networking. DISEÑO IDEAS designed them a networked tree.

Dreaming of an [insert your location here] Christmas card
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This time of year, where you are is very important—whether that’s home snuggled up with your family in front of the fire, or getting away from it all on a tropical beach. One great way to connect with your clients this holiday season, especially if you run a business that is intrinsically tied to a specific location, is to bring a sense of place to your designs.

Cute and clever way of bringing Hawaii into the holidays. By Gaby_Dieppa.

JITI is a Japanese transit company, so they brought in location and industry. By Alona K.

tanikadelaet has fun with collage in this beachy card.

Skyline line art by Andrea Carrot.

If your office or store is important to you, bring it into your card. By Jared Sc.

Seasons greetings keepin’ it classic
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Sometimes you want to be unique, but don’t want to be overly clever. Create a company holiday card with classic or fun imagery, and maybe include your logo subtly. A custom Christmas card from a professional designer will still make your card stand out from the rest, and hopefully make it to the front of your clients’ mantel card display.

A custom holiday card lets you use unique imagery. By Konstantin Kostenko.

How to get a custom holiday card for your business
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Maybe you have a freelance graphic designer in house. If so, awesome! Asking them to create a custom holiday card will be a fun project for them. If not, you’re going to want to hire a professional designer to create your card. There are two great ways to do this:

Greeting card design contests

If lots of ideas and seeing a variety of design styles are important to you, a design contest is a great way to go.

In a design contest, you write a brief describing what you’re looking for, and designers from all over the world submit concepts unique to your brief. You choose finalists, give feedback to perfect the designs and pick your favorite card (or cards) as the winner.

Hire a freelance greeting card designer

If you have a pretty clear idea of what you want in terms of style and content for your card, you can hire a freelance graphic designer to bring that vision to life. If you don’t already have a freelancer you love, take a look at our top greeting card designers, or start a brief and we’ll pair you with someone we think is the perfect match.

Print your greeting cards

Once you have your card designed, you will also need to have it printed. Printing can get more complicated than you think (digital vs. offset? Pantone inks? foils?) If you want to brush up on what your options are, check out our guide to printing your design projects.

There are a large number of quality printers out there. You can go with your neighborhood shop or an online one. We’ve worked with and can recommend:

Don’t forget that time is of the essence when thinking about holiday cards! Getting your design will probably take around a week, and printing at least that much time (unless you want to pay rush fees). Then, of course, you actually have to mail the things early to make sure they get to your clients on time! In all, I’d recommend budgeting about a month to create your custom cards.

Happy Holidays!

Ready to get a custom holiday card for your business?

Launch a design contest and get ideas from designers all around the world.

The author

Kelly is the senior manager of content strategy at 99designs. Previously, Kelly has been a web designer, filmmaker and educator. In addition to researching, writing and editing awesome articles on design, Kelly likes cuddling cats and over-explaining figure skating to people. You can reach her on Twitter @KelMo.